Happy 100, Mom!

How do I honor the woman who is at the core of who I am as a person? How do I share the depth and breadth of my mother’s remarkable life?

Mom was born 100 years ago today, and although she’s been gone a dozen years, she remains with me in so many ways.

By outward appearances, Mother led an unremarkable life. She grew up during the Depression as the oldest of eight children in a not-so-prosperous farm family. After graduating from high school, she took a job as a typesetter at a small printing company in her hometown, earning 15 cents an hour. Several years later she married my father—a factory worker who after serving in World War II became a baker. Together they raised a large family. She was widowed unexpectedly at age 60, traveled a bit following my father’s death, remarried at age 75, and died a dozen years later.

But the ordinariness of Mom’s life belies her true nature, for she was an extraordinary woman whose worldview transcended her circumstances. As a mother of twelve with limited means, she never allowed herself or her children to think they had fewer opportunities in life. She pushed us all to do well in school and provided numerous learning opportunities throughout her busy day: telling us stories while doing the weekly ironing, taking us at a young age to the public library, spearheading spontaneous spelling and language games, even making room in our crowded home for a foreign exchange student.

Mother was a lifelong learner who drew lessons from life itself, and bequeathed those lessons to her children. Through her I came to understand the preciousness of every day: Kneeling beside me as a child, she taught me to pray. Standing by me at the kitchen stove, she shared her love of cooking. Preserving vegetables from my father’s garden, she taught me the benefits of frugality and hard work. Doing homework under her watchful eye, I came to know the joy of learning. Resting with her, Dad, and my siblings on the front porch after a day’s work, I discovered the pleasure of family on a warm summer evening.  And most especially, by the respect she held for whomever she was with, she taught me to treat others with the dignity they deserved.

We tend to think of remarkable women as affecting change in a grand or worldly way—Eleanor Roosevelt, Madeline Albright, Rosa Parks—and they rightfully deserve their place in history. But it’s also important to remember the women whose legacy is inspiring others to be better human beings.

Happy Birthday, Mom, and thank you for the determined, quiet, and purposeful way you lived your life, and for showing me how to live that way too.